Pynchon Watch Y2K6: The "We forgots the taste of bread, precious" edition

Let's just put this out there, because I don't know where else to start, and I don't even know where this is going: I'm through parts one and two of Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm enjoying myself. If you need an adverb with that--and it's okay, it's only the Internet, whatever your writing teachers taught you, we're allowed to liberally (while splitting infinitives) use adverbs out here--I believe you can safely use "immensely". Or, maybe "thoroughly". I'm not committing myself. It's still early. And anyway, in either case, this much I know is true: I don't remember how it felt to not enjoy or "get" this book. I can't think of any other books or authors which have elicited from me such a 180 of opinion. Which, itself--with well over half the book remaining--is also subject to change. Should my patience dissolve, I could swing back through to 360--or any number--by the time I finish. But right now, I feel good. Great, actually.

To say more is to risk quickly devolving into a furious outpouring of unconnected thoughts, random diatribes, thoughtful digressions and half-baked main thoughts. Which, well, yeah, I mean, duh, right. Only possible way to react to the book, what have you and so on. But I'd rather not go there tonight. (If you're hard up for such material, you can always read my random-etc. thoughts on V.--about which, so long as I've got the parentheses open, let me extend a thought from that post: While I still believe that V. should not serve primarily or entirely as a "warm-up" for Gravity's Rainbow, it does, in the process of being a fascinating piece of reading in and of and for itself, also offer the reader an appetizing, "warm-up"-ing taste of the sort of things the reader might encounter in Gravity's Rainbow.) I do have several notebook pages of random thoughts and jotted notes that I might draw from for future posts; if nothing else, this is the closest I've come in some time to a truly well-documented reading experience.

What I will discuss here is the amount of work I'm putting into the book. In short: not as much as might be expected. The literature on Gravity's Rainbow, by this point, if laid out end to end, would easily wrap around any collection of objects you might suggest. (Such as, for example, the '85 Chicago Bears.) Yet the notion of literature which requires an instruction manual for its comprehension and enjoyment by a reader still rubs me the wrong way. (That being another topic that could be explicated and discussed ad nauseam, I'll just say again: Not tonight.) I maintain that the primary experience of reading a piece of fiction should be in the way a reader reads it, not about it; the surrounding discussion--while great, while critical, while essential--is secondary.

That said (did it need to be said, or am I being paranoid?), Mother Nature gave us trees so we could cut them down and make dictionaries out of them, and I've been using mine far more often than I usually do. She also gave us trees so we could make poles, and then she gave us legs and fancy belts so we could climb poles, and then she gave us hands so we could string phone cables between those poles, thereby simplifying the process of having an Internet; I've been using that now and then, too, either to access the HyperArts.com Pynchon Web guide to look up text references I haven't adequately noted or circled, or to access additional dictionaries and reference sites as the mood or fancy strikes.

What I haven't been using are book-specific reference guides. I know there's a couple out there, and I honestly have nothing against them, and would probably pick one up for a future re-reading, to simplify the task of accessing additional information about topics I'd like to know more about, or to clarify references I haven't even realized were references, because my mind, unlike Pynchon's, is finite. Also, I haven't been looking up every single reference that I have noted as being a reference, nor have I leapt from my semi-comfy reading chair every time my end table dictionary has failed me (which has happened often). I'd considered sticking the laptop on the end table for the duration of my reading, but I decided early on that I'm trying to strike a balance between careful examination of the text on each page of the book and an overall consideration of the shape and flow and structure of the story itself--i.e., I'm trying to take it slow, but not too slow.

Maybe I'll say more about my reading methods in another post. For now, I'll clarify my point, then get out of the way for a while: Turns out, much to my delight and surprise, a patient reader can derive great pleasure from Gravity's Rainbow, without having to integrate complete understanding of it.

(Math joke. Sorry.)

(Actually, no, I'm not. I like math. And math jokes.)

(Even if there's something...fishy about their distribution.)

(Hey, no. Stop. Please don't leave. It won't happen again.)

(Odds are, at least! Oh!)

(I'm done now.)